Dear Sir,

On the Bermuda Parliament website, under the main menu heading “House Business”, when you click on the side category “Committees”, you will find eight of them listed, one of which is the Public Accounts Committee. According to the website, the description and the main purpose of the PAC is: “to examine, consider and report on the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by the Legislature, to meet the public expenditure”. The committee is a bipartisan body, and its chairman is always a member of the Opposition.

The PAC is an action body for the concerns listed in every Auditor-General annual report, and it is a vital conduit for ensuring progress is made and reported on these matters. The PAC will review the Auditor-General’s annual report and issue its own report to the House of Assembly, asking the finance minister to respond to its recommendations.

Between the scathing report of the Spending and Government Efficiency Commission in 2013 and the decades of Auditor-General warnings, there has been very little measurable progress in the efficiency and accountability of government finances, which I find stunning. The taxpayer keeps tossing millions upon millions of dollars into government coffers, yet the Auditor-General’s report card continues to grade the management of those coffers a C-minus at best.

I have written to this newspaper about Auditor-General financial reporting concerns many times and have highlighted their “pleas” for improved financial record-keeping. While I may sound like a broken record, I repeat some of their concerns: late financial reporting is still a serious issue for various government entities and it is getting worse. Also, our government’s financial statements still do not consolidate the results of all of the government-controlled organisations with the Consolidated Fund and, according to our present Auditor-General, Heather Thomas, late reporting is the main reason.

The result is that the public are not being provided with full disclosure regarding the accumulated deficit or surplus of the Government. She also has expressed concern that anyone reading and relying on the financial statements of the Consolidated Fund may mistakenly view them as the Consolidated Financial Statements for the whole of government. Ms Thomas mentions in her January 30, 2020 report that the Ministry of Finance’s response for getting financials up to date was “passive”, and only strong leadership from the Ministry of Finance and government ministers would break the impasse regarding outstanding financial statements.

Quite frankly, I don’t think anyone would disagree that the public cannot have too many (effective) watchdogs overseeing the management of our tax dollars. Regarding the PAC, here we have a little-known — to the public — bipartisan oversight committee and I really don’t know much about its work. I do know who is on the committee, however, because the PAC members are listed on the website as mentioned above. But that’s about it. There are no minutes, no reports, no calendar of scheduled meeting dates. Why are the PAC reports not being generated and published on the parliamentary website like they are for the Office of the Auditor-General?

I recently spoke with a senior member of the present PAC, who told me that while the committee has been active, one of the main impediments to its effectiveness is lack of resources/manpower — be it a stenographer to record/transcribe the minutes of each meeting, administrative staff to research and audit the departmental financial items in question, and IT manpower to update the government website with all PAC meeting information. Also, the Speaker of the House has a ruling that the House cannot take up matters of concern in the Auditor-General’s report until the PAC has issued its own related report. As noted by Ms Thomas, “this means that unless the PAC’s reports to the House are timely, discussion in the House on matters in my reports can be delayed until they are no longer relevant”.

This indicates several things:

1, The PAC is not as effective as it should be and thus little action is being taken to address the Auditor-General’s concerns, stretching over many years

2, Neither the United Bermuda Party government, the succeeding Progressive Labour Party administration, the One Bermuda Alliance nor the returning PLP has made real progress on government financial issues, which have been the subject of concern by every single auditor-general of the public purse for more than 30 years

3, This failure to rectify concerns from the Office of the Auditor-General does not solely rest with who sits in “the House on the Hill”; it also sits firmly in the lap of the administrative arm of the Government, whose senior management continuously fails to be held accountable for its poor departmental “paper trail” performance.

As Ms Thomas has said, the public have a right to know how each public entity is spending and managing the public resources entrusted to it, and an effective PAC is an important factor in the work of every auditor-general. I suggest that the PAC should immediately be given “a raise” in the form of more staff resources and a much higher recognition and accountability as a financial overseer. After all, it’s just (our) money.

Lastly, I wonder how long Bermuda can keep being able to — or allowed to? — roll over its debt when we can’t produce government financials in a timely manner and in accordance with industry standards? Are the ratings agencies even aware of this?

At last year’s Chamber of Commerce budget breakfast, finance minister Curtis Dickinson began his comments with a quote from boxer Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

BEVERLEY CONNELL

Pembroke